Steps

This is my top pick for my logo I will use on my new greeting cards.  What do you think?

I spent the morning taking photos of a bunch of stuff I will be adding to my etsy shop.  For example:

"Pink Blossom Leafies" will be up by tonight.  

I've been struggling with my photography (as you know by now, I'm sure) and I finally decided I should just take photos of myself by myself from different angles.  They seem to be more intimate and natural and I always find surprises.  Like this one, which isn't the best etsy image but quite inspiring to me.

After my photo bonanza on the fire escape, I worked on greeting cards.  Here's one: 

I haven't printed any because we don't have a printer yet, BUT, I do like my designs and that's the first step to getting these babies to exist in the material world.  

This is how I'm trying to think, now, in steps.  I came back from Vermont Studio Center full of ideas and creative energy and then I realized that, Oh, right, I'm trying to make a living from my art which means I have a lot of work to do.  This ginormous amount of work easily piles up (specifically on the middle of my forehead) and soon I feel like my brain is being squished into a pancake, and not a delicious one, I'm sorry to say.  

So how do I do this step by step business?  I go back to why the heck I'm doing such a challenging thing: because I want to be able to choose how I structure my life.  I want to be able to continue to paint, do yoga, cook magical vegan food, have a family and travel.  I also don't want to work on someone else's clock.  Some people are made for the 9-5 jobs.  I am not.  I know I'm most creative in the morning, most needing of exercise in the afternoon and a waste of space after about 10pm (unless I'm at a dance party, the mystery of which never fails to amaze me.)

Today's first step came to me like this:  I have been saying I'm going to put more earrings on etsy for a LONG time, telling a billion people this, and I have about 100 pairs in my studio.  Seriously.  That's crazy!  They should be out in the world on wonderful adventures with you and your mom, not stuck in boxes in Brooklyn.  Also, how am I supposed to make a living if my work isn't some place where my creations can run into you and say "hello"?  Etsy here I come!

I wonder if this step-by-step process could work for any pursuit?  I guess it takes a certain amount of big picture thinking for me about why I exist.  It's a big question, I know, but my specific thoughts about it hold the strings of my daily life together.  I don't want to waste any minute of my life so I like to do things like make a list of all the things I might ever want to do in my life, barring any thoughts about impossibility.  It's a daydream list.  Then I think about how to live now so that it will open the doors for all of those things to happen.  

On the other hand, I also believe that my life today reflects the rest of my life so I try to make my day the way that I want the rest of my life to be.  On that note, I better get some earrings up on etsy so I can go home, do some yoga, eat dinner and go see a rock show with my main man Mikey.